


i had the time of my life (fighting dragons with you)

by lover_of_queens



Category: Fate: The Winx Saga (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Love Confessions, The inherent melancholy in saying goodbye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29902548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lover_of_queens/pseuds/lover_of_queens
Summary: It's graduation at Alfea and our golden trio + Luna must grapple with what it means to say goodbye.For Farah and Saul, it means finally acknowledging what has too long gone unsaid.
Relationships: Farah Dowling/Saul Silva
Comments: 15
Kudos: 51





	i had the time of my life (fighting dragons with you)

**Author's Note:**

> Title pulled from the lyrics of Taylor Swift's "Long Live" -- there is no better graduation song. 
> 
> This fic definitely paints a slightly happier picture of what I imagine Alfea was like under Rosalind, to a degree. That being said I do consider it a semi-canon compliant prequel to the first season, so yes those Farah and Luna scenes are meant to hurt. Also, it's March again, which means that for me it's been almost a full year since I've seen some of the people who mean the most to me. I'm sure a lot of you can agree. This fic really seeks to get the heart of those feelings, which is another reason why I've taken a softer approach. 
> 
> These fools all love each other tremendously, so I only hope that you will love this too!

Farah blinks her eyes open to a soft stream of light making its way through the slightly cracked open window. The chilly spring air sneaks into the room and makes itself at home. She pulls the blanket around her tighter, as though she can hope to keep it out. But it is well acquainted with the room and all who have passed through - it knows where the cracks are. She shivers as the goosebumps crawl across her skin. 

“It’s warmer in the sun,” Luna says, turning to face her. A hint of a smile dances across her face and she holds out a mug to Farah. She can see the steam rising from its contents and the promise of warmth finally pulls her from her bed. 

She walks over to Luna, her footsteps soft against the wooden floors, they have lived here long enough to know where all the creaks in the floorboards are. She gladly accepts the mug and brings it to her lips, letting the warmth of the tea chase away the cold. 

“I can’t believe we graduate today,” Farah whispers into the steam, hoping it will steal away her words and make them untrue. She doesn’t know who she is without Alfea, what she will do without it. 

As though Luna can sense her fears, she wraps an arm around her suitemate. A quick flick of her wrist and the sun’s light is redirected to Farah’s face. 

_Before she was even Queen, Luna was the most powerful of them all._

But in the moment Farah just soaks in the sun. They will only have one more sunrise here and it will be quickly followed by the packing of suitcases and final goodbyes as everyone moves on to the next stage of their lives. A prospect that has many excited leaves Farah terrified. 

But the Headmistress always said fear was good, so Farah will try her best to make it seem as though she is embracing it. Even when she feels sick to her stomach. 

“It’s hard to believe we won’t be waking up next to each other anymore,” Farah says, turning to face Luna. Her suitemate has only blossomed in her two years here and though Farah has always tried not to compare herself to royalty, she is still technically a teenager. 

“I thought that prospect would excite you,” Luna says, squeezing Farah tighter before letting her go and making her way over to her side of the room. An outfit is laid out on her bed, she and Farah had stayed awake into the darkest hours of the night tearing apart her closet. 

Farah sits on the window seat, setting her mug down on a nearby table. She pulls her legs up and into herself, her arms crossed on top of them. “It’s been a while since we tried to kill each other.” 

Luna laughs from the other side of the room and Farah imagines how it must echo throughout the rooms of their suite. Luna’s laugh is much like her; it demands all of the space in the room. If their other suitemates weren’t awake yet then they certainly would be now. Of course, they were also _used_ to being awoken by Farah and Luna. It just so happened that, usually, it was yelling that startled them into the realm of consciousness. 

“Well,” Luna says, traipsing back over to Farah, dress in hand. “Turns out the Headmistress was right in not separating us. I couldn’t even imagine trying to kill you anymore.” She presses a quick kiss to the top of Farah’s head before she sets off towards the door. 

“Even when I snore?” Farah yells. 

“Even when you snore. You’re one of my best friends, dumbass.” 

And with that Luna is off and Farah’s heart feels warm. 

* * *

The dining hall is chaos as usual when Farah and Luna make their way over to experience _fine dining_ for one of the last times. Saul and Ben are at their usual table in the corner and Saul waves at them. He knows they will make their way over anyway, but things become habits if done often enough. 

“I’ll get yours,” Luna whispers to Farah, going up on her tiptoes even though the dining hall is loud enough that nobody could hope to hear her words anyway. “Go talk to your boyfriend.” 

“He is not my -”

Luna is already gone and Farah just watches her walk away, if she concentrates hard enough on her magic she can find the thread that connects her mind to Luna’s and she sends through an image. The middle finger Luna throws up in response is all the proof Farah needs to know the message was received. 

Farah slides into the bench and the boys look up at her. An easy smile spreads across Ben face’s, Saul’s is weightier with an emotion Farah cannot name. She thinks back to Luna’s comment before pushing it from her mind. Even if there is _something_ there, both her and Saul are leaving tomorrow to make their way to opposite ends of the Otherworld. 

Farah knows there is no use in ruining a perfectly good friendship with a one-sided confession. Much less ruining what is supposed to be the greatest moment of their lives. Graduation. 

Well, most Alfea students would probably say the after-graduation party. But Farah is quite looking forward to holding a piece of paper that proves she’s survived the last two years. That she’s done something _good_ with her life. 

She just wishes that her parents were here to see it. 

“How are you this fine morning, Dowling?” Saul asks, tossing an apple in his hands. It’s untouched, he must have been waiting for them to arrive to start eating.

“Well,” Farah says, although with the thoughts of her parents in mind she’s not certain how convincing she sounds. 

“They’d be proud, Farah.” Saul’s hand extends for a moment and Farah thinks he’s going to touch hers. But he sets it down on the table at the last minute. Farah can’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment flutter in her heart. 

“As are we,” Ben quickly adds, seemingly catching on to what is going unsaid. “I’m proud of all of us. Who would have thought we’d survive the Headmaster and Headmistress?” 

Luna slides in next to Farah, passing a bowl of cereal her way. “Who did we survive?” 

“Rosalind and -”

“We’re on a first name basis with the Headmistress now, huh Harvey?” Saul jostles into Ben’s shoulder to show that he’s only teasing. “Besides, we still have another twenty-four hours left. Plenty of time for our wonderful overlords to carry out their violent schemes.” 

Farah sighs into her cereal. “Don’t even joke about that. I’m still covered in bruises from the final exam.”

“I think that has less to do with the Headmistress and more to do with the fact that _your_ specialist will only too happily run into danger at a moment’s notice,” Luna says. 

Saul tosses the apple at Luna in false outrage, but she catches it, taking a bite out of it. Making a big show out of it too, despite Saul’s protests. It’s nothing new. 

As Farah takes in her friends all together at _their_ spot for what could be the last time she feels an acute ache in her soul; she is missing something that is not yet gone, something that is right in front of her. Yet, it hurts all the same. 

They have become her family when she had none. Their blood may not run in her veins but their laughter lives in her heart. She does not know how she will handle being parted from them. 

“Cheer up,” Luna says, tilting her head so it rests against Farah’s shoulder. “Alfea is only the beginning of our lifelong love story.” 

Oh, how Farah longs to believe her words to be true. 

* * *

Graduation begins at 4 pm sharp. So naturally, Saul stumbles into the courtyard at five minutes past the hour, the big wrought iron doors screeching with his arrival. Farah hangs her head in her hands and Luna laughs. 

“Thank you for gracing us with your presence, Mr. Silva,” Rosalind says from her place at the lectern, centre stage. “I only wish you had the good sense to grace us with it at the designated time.” 

“Sorry, Ma’am!” Saul yells, his voice carrying through the auditorium. As luck would have it, the seating arrangements have him sat in the dead middle of a very long row and his _sorry, excuse me_ ’s fill the silence as what feels like the whole world watches him make his way over to his place. 

Once he is seated, he offers the Headmistress a thumbs up, and an audible sigh echoes through the room. “I suppose it would not be an Alfean graduation without some unplanned event occurring.” Rosalind throws up her hands in a kind of defeated acceptance and there is some scattered laughter. 

“Your boyfriend sure knows how to make an entrance,” Luna whispers to Farah. 

“Again, we are not-” 

Luna shushes her suddenly as Rosalind begins speaking once more. Farah rolls her eyes and casts a look back at Saul, only to find him watching her, a smirk on his face. He winks at her and she pretends she feels nothing. The flush of blush across her cheeks is merely a result of the body heat of too many teenagers and their parents forced into one room. And absolutely nothing to do with the specialist who is too handsome for his own good. 

A specialist with eyes as blue as a stormy ocean that Farah can’t help but want to plunge headfirst into. Drowning be damned. 

A pinch on her leg brings her back to the present. It is time to begin lining up. 

It is both slower and faster than Farah thought it would be. She is not good in heels but Luna had insisted, for the ceremony at least. So she clings on to Luna as they line the side of the stage, just waiting to climb the stairs. Luna, to her credit, lets Farah hold on to her for the several agonizing minutes it takes for the first set of students to cross the stage. 

Farah is just grateful that her name is fairly early in the alphabet because the straps of her shoes are starting to dig into the last piece of soft flesh she has and she had been hoping she might enjoy today without accruing even more bruises. Soon enough, her name echoes across the loudspeakers, and with a nudge of encouragement, Farah is walking across the stage towards the Headmistress. 

Rosalind offers Farah her signature smile, just the smallest hint of wickedness behind her upturned lips. Her grip on Farah’s hand is strong and Farah tries to pretend that it doesn’t feel like the netting of a trap threatening to swallow her whole. The tassel on her cap is moved to the other side and before she even knows it she is standing on the other side of the stage. Two years of her life over just like that. 

Farah casts her gaze out into the audience and wonders if she seeks out Saul’s face instinctively. She swears he yelled the loudest when her name was called, but perhaps her brain is playing tricks on her. But, there he is in the crowd looking right back at her. He smiles. 

She smiles back. She is standing still but somehow feels shakier than ever. 

* * *

Saul finds her after the ceremony at the fountain by the hedge maze. She tosses a coin in just to hear the sound of it as it hits the water. She had given up on making wishes here a long time ago. But something keeps bringing her back. 

Hope, maybe. 

“Farah,” Saul says, jogging over. “It’s freezing out.” 

He’s not wrong. The sun is about to set and something about the way the pinks and oranges of the sky are swirling together reminds Farah of a dream she once had. She hadn’t even noticed how cold it was, but the hair on her arms stands at attention in the cold air. 

_Always the perfect little soldier. Even before she’d gone to war._

Saul shrugs out of his jacket and wraps it around her shoulders. Farah accepts it gratefully, pulling it in tighter around her. It smells just like him. As she turns to face him the last rays of twilight catch the golden pendant hanging around her neck that he had given her for her eighteenth birthday. 

She looks down and sure enough, the silver bracelet she’d given him for his eighteenth is around his wrist. He exhales as he looks at her wearing his jacket. Farah has magic running through her veins and yet something about this moment could put her powers to shame. 

“You look beautiful, by the way.” 

Farah tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “Thank you.” The dress with its v-neck cut and thin straps felt very out of Farah’s comfort zone, but Luna had insisted that the midnight blue looked positively heavenly against Farah’s skin.

And the way that Saul is looking at her like she’s been crafted from the stars has Farah thinking that maybe Luna was right. The air gets heavier with unsaid words and Saul clears his throat. 

“What are you doing out here, anyway?” 

“Everybody’s milling around with their parents before the actual party starts. I felt out of place.” 

Saul pulls her into him. “You always have a place by my side, Farah.” 

She rests her head against his chest and finds his heart beats true. 

* * *

“You’re insane, Silva,” Luna says, before tipping a shot of tequila down the back of her throat. 

Somehow, even at a party the four of them will find each other in the corner of a room. Farah had wandered over to the bench first, the strobe lighting and too loud emotions were on the verge of giving her a headache. The rest of them had made their way over one by one. 

“I’ll have to agree with Luna on this one Saul,” Farah says nervously, eyeing the needle and ink in his hands. 

“It won’t even last more than five years. I mean, that’s what the box said. I think.” 

“How drunk are you?” Ben laughs. 

“Too drunk to be coming anywhere near my skin with a sharp object,” Luna says. 

Saul turns his puppy eyes on Farah once more. “It’ll bind us all together while we’re apart.” 

Farah's eyes flick between Luna and Ben. Ben caves first, and presents his hand to Saul with a dramatic flourish. 

Luna stands up. “You all have fun with that, if my parents saw me with a tattoo my title would be stripped away.” 

Farah watches as she makes her way through the crowd, the smiles she gives to everybody as they part for her. Farah loves Luna with all of her heart, she is terrified by how quickly her best friend can switch the princess persona on. Smiles dripping in false niceties and a cloudiness behind her eyes that looks a lot like complete and utter detachment. 

Farah feels a prick on her finger and when she looks up Saul is poised, needle in hand. 

“Your turn, Dowling.” 

It hurts as much as one would expect and Farah is left with a line and several dots around one of her fingers. Saul is a wonderful specialist, but not so much an artist. Still, it is the best present she has ever been given. And she will treasure it for however long it lasts. 

She hopes it will be until her last breath. 

* * *

People can only party for so long when there is a sharp move-out time the following morning and soon people start leaving for one last sleep in the beds that have become all too familiar to them. 

“I should also get going,” Luna says, standing up. “The Solarian guards are nothing if not prompt and I would like to get some semblance of sleep tonight.” 

“Mhhm,” Farah says. She is looking at Saul. He is looking at her. 

“Ben, be a dear and walk a girl back to the Fairy Hall?” Luna extends her arm and Ben takes it gracefully. The two of them depart with whispered words and glances back. 

Saul taps his fingers on the table. “Would you like an escort too, love?” 

Farah gives him her hand and when he takes it she feels like a piece of her soul has finally returned to her. 

It has rained since the party and Farah’s shoes keep sinking into the wet mud. She is much too happy to care that Saul can’t stop laughing at her struggling. Soon he takes matters into his own hands, literally, and sweeps her into his arms; bridal style. 

Farah tightens her arms around his neck. “Don’t you dare drop me, Silva.” Her breath tickles his ear and his laugh gets stolen away into the night. 

He drops his arms ever so slightly and Farah squeals before he catches her again. “You’re a dead man.” 

He sets her down on the pavement in front of the main building. “I’d have to disagree with you there. I think I’m the luckiest man in the world.” 

And there it is. Out in the open on their last night together. 

Farah swallows. “You’re drunk.” 

“I was,” Saul says, cupping her face between his hands. “But I’m not anymore. In fact, I’ve never been able to think so clearly in my life.” 

Farah believes him. She knows Saul when he has had too many and this is not him. His eyes are clear and his words are true. 

“And what are you thinking?”

“That I’ve been a fool to wait until now to tell you how I feel about you. That since you first entered my head, you haven’t left. That I never want you to leave. I want you with me, always.” 

Farah feels her eyes getting wet, she has never been taught how to be deserving of a love like this. “I never want to leave you.” The words fall from her lips and it feels like she has never spoken the truth until now. 

She inches forward slowly until she captures his lips with her own. He is softer than she thought he would be. Her hands seek out his shirt so she can pull him closer to her, but even with only mere molecules separating them she knows they will never be close enough. She pulls away from him so she can see if the look in his eyes mirrors the feelings in her heart and she is torn open by the rawness she sees in them. 

“Farah, I want to open my mind to you. Fully.” 

She lets out a breath. There is no bigger show of trust. “Are you sure?”

“I am not a poet. I am not an artist. I cannot paint you pretty words and call it love, though I wish it were in my power. I am a soldier -” His voice is shaking now but he does not look away from her eyes. “I am a soldier and I have had it beaten into me that my thoughts are not my own, but they _are_ and they are of _you_. So, I open my mind to you, Farah Dowling, so you can feel everything I cannot convey.” 

Saul leans forward until his forehead is against Farah’s, her eyes glow purple, and colours she has never seen before flash through her mind. Saul may not be an artist but he has created a whole new world for her inside of his mind. 

And Farah lets herself freefall into him. Hitting the ground be damned. 

* * *

When she wakes up it is in Saul’s bed, both of them still in their clothes from the night before. She traces the outline of his beard with her finger and one side of his lips quirks up, letting her know he’s awake. His arm pulls her in closer and she’s kissing him like it’ll be the last time. 

Because in a few short hours they will be saying their goodbyes. 

How she pulls away from him she does not know. But soon enough she is wandering through the halls back to her own room, shoes in hand. 

When she walks in Luna is at the window, a cup of tea in hand. There is one sitting on the table for Farah and she picks it up, the warmth of it feels like home. 

Luna does not have to say anything, the fact that Farah is creeping back in wearing last night’s dress tells her everything she needs to know. She pulls Farah into a hug. “I am so happy for the two of you.” 

By the time they are finished packing, the room is empty but Farah’s heart is filled with memories. Luna grabs Farah’s hand and they walk down together. Ben and Saul are at the gates waiting for them. The Solarian guards just beyond. 

Luna hugs her boys first, ruffling what is left of Ben’s hair and teasing Saul about the new marks on his neck. 

When she turns to Farah her eyes are wet. She has always said that royalty does not cry, and yet here she is breaking all of the rules for Farah. She wraps her in an embrace once again. “I am grateful for the pleasure of knowing you.” 

“As am I,” Farah says, pulling her in tighter before letting her go. 

They watch as her car drives away and Farah feels as though she has lost a piece of her heart that she will never be able to get back. 

Ben soon follows suit, although he blows past Luna’s teary eyes into full-blown sobbing that is only made better when Saul reminds him of the tattoo that the three of them share. 

And then all that is left is Farah and Saul. 

Saul wraps his arms around her as he pulls her close. “This is not the end of our story, Dowling.” 

“I had the time of my life with you.” Farah reaches up to kiss him one last time. “Until we meet again.” 

Farah watches as he walks away from her, knowing he will not look back because if he looks back then they will never be able to part. But she knows her words are true, they will meet again. 

_It was fate_.


End file.
